Sequence
by Langleykel
Summary: SV angst. What would have changed if he'd said "I love you?" One of one.


**Sequence**

**By: Ellie**

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.  Don't sue!

**A/N:  **This is NOT my usual fluff.  So if you're not in the mood for angst…don't read!  This is very unlike most of the fics I've posted and I'm quite nervous…so if you could give me ANY tips or feedback, I'd appreciate it.  Thanks so much.  Happy Reading!

~Ellie

**Sequence**

Much unhappiness has come into this world because of things left unsaid.

****

And Michael Vaughn feels sure that no one can better attest to this fact as he stands tracing his fingers over a smooth, muted, shine and lowering his eyes to the damp grass that sinks slightly beneath his feet.  

The sun is shining but the air is hazy enough to wash the city in tones of beige and sepia.  It burns his eyes and stings his throat and he can't help but wish that such an important occasion could have occurred on one of the few clear Los Angeles days.  Perhaps such a blessing would have provided him with a similar clarity…

And he wouldn't have been forced to weigh his words with his omissions. 

Thoughts had gone unspoken and words were spoken without thought.  Sometimes it was hard to distinguish between the two.  His mind throbbed with meaningful afterthoughts while his tongue swelled with the memories of thoughtless murmurs.  Tracing the band that wraps around his finger, he wonders.

If he had been honest from the very beginning, what would have happened?

* 

*

*

_What if he had said "I love you"?_

*

*

*

It was a regret that would be with him forever.  A tattoo on his soul that would remain incomplete for as long as he lived.  The words were there but were caught behind his lips.  The feelings singed his heart but were smothered by his anger and despair.  

He had waited for the perfect moment.

It was only in hindsight that every click of the clock's hand seemed to have been ideal.  The perfect moment had passed him by time and time again.  Only he was too blinded by his incapacitating love and a previously undiscovered romantic streak to notice.  Three little words had rested on the tip of his tongue for months only to be stranded and left unuttered.  Unspoken and, most terrifyingly, unheard…but hopefully not unknown.

Life is much simpler when contemplated through a rearview mirror.  And for six months, Michael Vaughn eyed himself in reflections of what was and of what might have been.  

What might have been, for instance, if he had simply told Sydney that night in her car?

I love you.

Would they have been overcome with clumsy passion?  Stumbled their way to her bedroom where he could have protected her from the familiar intruder?  Or, at the very least, died with her?

There were no doubts.  No shying from commitment.  No irrational fear of where it would all lead.  The future was a given.  Sydney was it.  And he'd had all the time in the world to declare is love in the grandest of all romantic schemes and gestures.  

There would be roses and wine in the foreground while music would hum vaguely from nearby.  She would blush slightly as he whispered the words to her and glance demurely towards her lap before letting her gaze roll upward through a fringe of dark lashes.  The smile would start as a parting of her lips before bursting open to reveal the hollows poked just beneath each cheekbone.  And she would respond in a hushed whisper, as though it was a secret unknown to all the world, "I love you too."

Fantasy and memory had hovered dangerously close to one another and threatened to intertwine on countless occasions.  But the fantasy had always ended there.  The memory had never even gotten started.

What if he had told the world that he, Michael Vaughn, was in love with Sydney Bristow?

*

*

*

Would Marcus Dixon would have felt the inclination to inform the younger agent that Sydney Bristow was, in fact, alive?

* 

* 

*

His sense of deprivation was indescribable.  Dixon had faced the loss of a daughter.  Of a friend.  Of a partner.

He was an explorer without his compass.  A writer without his pen. Sydney had been integral to his work.  A light as he wandered through the darkness.

The façade was an easy one to maintain.  He was strong.  Saddened obviously, but he was moving onward and upward.  His upward mobility in the ranks of the CIA kept him busy, but the job was a hard one to do.  It's hard to continue in a job that has killed so many of the people you love.  Diane.  Emily.  Sydney.

Sydney was supposed to be the untouchable.  Too smart to be fooled.  Too strong to be broken.  Too valuable to be taken from a world so severely lacking in honor and poise.

But on a bleary day nine months after Sydney's presence had faded to black, Marcus Dixon witnessed the phone call that would allow the façade to fade away as his job became just a bit easier, the world just a bit brighter with Sydney's presence once again.

Sydney was alive.

If she wasn't worth fighting for, Dixon didn't know who was.  

He wanted to shout it to the world.  

Sydney Bristow is alive!  The woman who has been secretly and thanklessly working to maintain the safety of millions of strangers had survived.  

And yet he was silent.  Gagged by his orders from his superiors, he watched as others continued in their states of despondency.  He watched as Jack Bristow fell from grace within the agency.  He suffered tremendous bouts of guilt when Jack was put behind bars for his vengeful search of Sydney's killers.  

He watched as a young agent with such tremendous potential as Michael Vaughn, disregarded the legacy that had been so important to him.  Watched as he stepped cleanly out of his father's footsteps and moved in favor of a path towards slow but certain destruction.  It was Michael Vaughn he wanted to tell most of all.  

Dixon remembered the shy looks and the subtle caresses that had been exchanged between Sydney and Vaughn.  He remembered the anguished expression on Sydney's face as she told him that she had lied to Vaughn on his behalf.  He remembered walking into the charred remains of Sydney's home only to find Agent Vaughn slouched among ashes clutching a confirmation number for a hotel in Santa Barbara.  And he remembered the tremendous amount of courage he had displayed as he shook the ashes into the breeze at Sydney's funeral.  Had they been in love?  

What if he had broken protocol?  

What if he had shared his privileged information?

* 

* 

* 

Would Michael Vaughn have fallen victim to Lauren Reed's advances? 

*

*

*

She made him smile.  After heated promises never to love again and shouted rages against any and all things romantic, Lauren Reed had conquered his fear of progression _for_ him.  She wouldn't _allow_ him to wallow in memories and swoon over creased photographs.  She kept his mind moving.  She kept his focus centered.  On her.

And the first time she made him smile, he realized he had almost forgotten what such an expression felt like.  His cheek muscles pinched and his lips nearly cracked when they were stretched into a light laugh that caught even him off-guard.

Michael Vaughn couldn't count the number of times he had prepared himself to end things with Lauren.  He couldn't be with her.  Couldn't do that to Sydney.  Couldn't just _be _with someone else.  A woman like Sydney deserved to be remembered as someone's first, last, and only true love.  She was going to be that for him.  He justified his planned actions by deciding that Lauren deserved better.  She was too good to spend the rest of her life panting from her efforts to keep up with the Sydney that existed in his mind.  After all, one could chase perfection for an eternity and never come close to achieving it.  He couldn't subject Lauren to such a future.

But there was the matter of his survival.  

And if he was going to spend the rest of his life remembering Sydney, if her memory was going to live on with him…then even _its _days were numbered.  Because sitting through each torturous moment with thoughts of her in his head…counting her smiles…remembering the feel of her hair as it dragged between his fingers…the hefty, belly-laugh he heard on such precious few occasions…  It would kill him too.

Lauren was a special woman.  She was kind and graceful.  Her sense of humor was quiet and her manner slightly withdrawn, but she made him smile.  She was the first woman since Sydney to do so.  But Sydney was gone.

So the ring was purchased and the invitations sent.  

Michael Vaughn and Sydney Bristow request the honor of your presence…no, no.  

Michael Vaughn and Lauren Reed request the honor of your presence.

Common mistake.  Which he had never disclosed to Lauren.  What was the point of making a smooth ride turbulent?

Had he verbalized such a trivial flaw, he didn't know where he would be. But he was fairly certain that he wouldn't be wearing a ring.  And that the eyes that haunted him every night would _still_ be brown.    

*

*

*

But without him, would Lauren have achieved her endgame?

*

*

*

She had choked on her red wine when he had proposed.  It had been flowing smoothly down her throat when he had uttered those four words.  And suddenly she was coughing and sputtering gracelessly.

"Will you marry me?"  He had asked with tired eyes and a secondhand smile.

It wasn't that she couldn't believe he was proposing.  That had been her mission after all.  Seducing Michael Vaughn.  But she had always thought that the four-worded proposal would come sometime after a three-worded declaration.

A certain declaration that Michael Vaughn had yet to make.

Still, she patted her chest with a delicate hand as she muttered something along the lines of "wrong pipe".  She smiled as she accepted the offered ring and surrounded herself with what she hoped was a glowing aura of happiness.  She knew that he had cared about his former asset.  That he had been tattered and torn apart by the guilt he felt following her death.  But she was confident that he had moved on because of her.  And her mission was going quite smoothly.

Until the Covenant informed her that Julia Thorne had gone rogue.  

And Sydney Bristow was suddenly plucked from the great beyond and placed directly in her path. Sydney was a slender woman.  But she might as well have been an endless wall of stone for her ability to surround and sequester Michael's heart.  

Not a part of the plan.

So when Lauren finally asked herself why her fists would tighten at the very sight of Sydney Bristow, she realized that she had failed in her quest.  She comfortable in her role as Mrs. Michael Vaughn.  She was committed to her marriage.  So the Covenant's goal became her own…the elimination of the pretty, brown-eyed hindrance who fought to reclaim her identity.    

So Lauren waited. 

And her prayers were answered when Sydney's coveted memories were no longer necessary.  The Cube had been found.  Her eggs had been harvested.  Sydney Bristow was irrelevant.

Lauren had worked closely with her.  She knew the people who cared for her.  Michael cared for her.  It wasn't difficult to use her proximity to the CIA to gain knowledge about Sydney's routines and habits.  Just small bits and pieces from her friends and acquaintances assembled to provide Lauren with a larger picture of a woman she despised.  

It wasn't hard to stalk her.  To get her alone.  To pull the trigger.

*

*

*

*

*

If someone had spoken up, would Sydney Bristow be dead? 

*

*

*

*

*

Michael Vaughn continues tracing the circle around his finger.  The pale skin will soon darken and the white ring of flesh will fade away.  

He isn't sure he can say the same about the cool feel of the polished casket beneath his hand.  It's a chill that will probably always linger in the tips of his fingers and toes.

Casket.  

Her casket.

There had been a body this time.  Her identity had been unmistakable when they had discovered her.  Buying flowers at a booth on a remote street corner. Frozen in crimson-soaked clothing.  Her handful of flowers scattered around her in full bloom. A single bullet wound to the head.  Fast. Painless.  Or it would have been if the shooter hadn't done a few warm-up pulls on the trigger. 

The shooter.

His wife.

They were one and the same.

 Incriminated by a hasty getaway, it wasn't hard to follow the trail.  A shell forgotten in a crevice in the cement.  A gun found in an anonymous dumpster.  And security footage of a petite blonde disposing of the weapon with a nonchalant toss towards  the receptacle.  It was a trail that ended at his own front door.

Sydney was gone again.  He had been given a second chance.  An opportunity to speak the unspoken words that had strangled him for the two years he'd mourned.  The words he'd promised he'd say if given the chance to dislodge them from his mind.

The hardest promises to keep are the ones that seem impossible to break.  

Simple words could have broken the chain.  Interrupted the sequence. 

 If only he'd told the world how he felt.  If only Dixon had told him she was alive.  If only he'd told Lauren who he truly loved.  If only she'd slipped up…inadvertently made them privy to her agenda…

There's a new addition to his long list of regrets…words that will forever remain unsaid.

He squeezes a handful of moist earth before letting it rain from between his fingers to the top of the casket with barely a sound.  As his hand clenches and releases the soft grains, his eyes clench tightly shut and sting with unshed tears.

He wishes he could have said good-bye.

FIN


End file.
